Archers

[Vibe]

I mean, I played cav or polearms inf for the last like 10 generations, and now I´m finally back to archery. I know how it feels when your horse gets shot away under you arse

Hehe, so do I, mate

I'll make sure I stick to you next time we play.

[Keshian]

Archers can have decent melee weapons, just use normal arrows (x1 loomed = 27 to a quiver) with a strong bow.  Most battle maps (with less than 60 on the server) 27 arrows is plenty if you dont waste them on holy mary shots and horses that are riding away and out of range.  One of my favorite things now is seeing someone charge me hoping for another easy archer kill since most carry really tiny weapons and I pull out my Masterwork Miaodao doing 43 cut damage and they slow down just a bit, maybe take a step back.  Hell, with that gear you can pull out an elegant poelaxe or great long axe if you dislike shielders, an awlpike if you dislike cavalry, or a big old danish greatsword.  Just learn to conserve arrows for important targets and maximum damage.

[Overdriven]

Archers can have decent melee weapons, just use normal arrows (x1 loomed = 27 to a quiver) with a strong bow.  Most battle maps (with less than 60 on the server) 27 arrows is plenty if you dont waste them on holy mary shots and horses that are riding away and out of range.  One of my favorite things now is seeing someone charge me hoping for another easy archer kill since most carry really tiny weapons and I pull out my Masterwork Miaodao doing 43 cut damage and they slow down just a bit, maybe take a step back.  Hell, with that gear you can pull out an elegant poelaxe or great long axe if you dislike shielders, an awlpike if you dislike cavalry, or a big old danish greatsword.  Just learn to conserve arrows for important targets and maximum damage.

Normal arrows are nothing more than a nuisance. I wear steppe armour, and being shot by normal arrows is like a pinprick. Conserving arrows isn't the issue, the fact you're using normal arrows is. I'd bet you get more melee kills than arrow kills with those?

[Tears of Destiny]

Normal arrows are nothing more than a nuisance. I wear steppe armour, and being shot by normal arrows is like a pinprick. Conserving arrows isn't the issue, the fact you're using normal arrows is. I'd bet you get more melee kills than arrow kills with those?

Honestly depends. Standard arrows with PD 8 and a MW Warbow leave a mark on anyone.

I can still two-shot my average target, and with 6 or 7 PD still two shot most targets, never more then three. A headshot is still a headshot too...

[Overdriven]

Honestly depends. Standard arrows with PD 8 and a MW Warbow leave a mark on anyone.

I can still two-shot my average target, and with 6 or 7 PD still two shot most targets, never more then three. A headshot is still a headshot too...

Warbow sure, that I can believe. But his example was with a strong bow and not a MW one.

[Tears of Destiny]

Warbow sure, that I can believe. But his example was with a strong bow and not a MW one.

Ah, very true, very true.

[Cyclopsided]

Kesh has MW arrows, MW Strong bow, and a lot of PD.
You won't survive very many.

[RagnarLodbroke]

I once tried out the Normal Arrows on the siege server with a MW Strongbow..Dunno how many times i shot a heraldic (7 k armor) dude 7 or 8 times i think, one thing is for sure, he refused to die!

I like the MW Bodkins and the MW strongbow ALOT better!

Also ur able to bring a Ok wep if ur using the Strongbow and 2 quivers with MW bodkins, 34 arrows is more than enough! I usally equip the Military sickle, Langes Messer or the club looking thingy (2h) with 1 slots

[Keshian]

Admittedly MW strongbow + MW arrows = 32 cut, then add in the 6 powerdraw.  But not every archer has that setup so probably only 30 cut if they have 4 heirloom points (1 for a large bag to get it up to 27 arrows) worth, thats only 3 to 4 less damage (2 + 1 to 2 from powerdraw bonus).  It takes 1 extra arrow to kill someone, or headshots, did 3 consecutive headshots earlier today and every 1 is a kill despite decent helmets.  It takes me 9-10 arrows to kill someone in 3x loomed plate with strength build, but when facing someone like that your main role is to shoot them as they are being hammered on by your melee allies.  I would say 60% of my kills are from melee, but only 30% of the people I wound.  If you have to have the glory of being the one to kill them with your bow, probably won't be the best way to go, but if you want to be a good support character while still being able to fully defend yourself when enemies inevitably get near you, then it works out quite well.  I have to say it is really nice to have a good melee weapon and rather than get in prolonged archer duels sometimes while your team is getting decimated elsewhere or an enemy hits you from the side or back, you can just duck and weave (most archers arrows are really easy toa void if you are aware of them targeting you adn there are not too many archers at once) and get up close and kill them in 1 slice maybe 2 at the most in their light armor.

Of course also with this build as a hybrid I put 124 wpf in 2h and wear 9.5 weight body armor, .5 weight gloves, .8 weight boots, and 1.5 weight helmet so most archers melee weapons dont do much damage at all (though my weight in gear makes my effective archery wpf 127).  I keep debating respeccing to a dedicated archer, but its really nice to just melee sometimes with decent stats.  I am starting to see more archers go this way instead of the opposite end of the spectrum, which is high athletics, pure archer who just runs away and shoots as someone gets close and repeats.  (The other day I saw an archer with a mallet, was fun to watch).

[Maciver]

Admittedly MW strongbow + MW arrows = 32 cut, then add in the 6 powerdraw.  But not every archer has that setup so probably only 30 cut if they have 4 heirloom points (1 for a large bag to get it up to 27 arrows) worth, thats only 3 to 4 less damage (2 + 1 to 2 from powerdraw bonus).  It takes 1 extra arrow to kill someone, or headshots, did 3 consecutive headshots earlier today and every 1 is a kill despite decent helmets.  It takes me 9-10 arrows to kill someone in 3x loomed plate with strength build, but when facing someone like that your main role is to shoot them as they are being hammered on by your melee allies.  I would say 60% of my kills are from melee, but only 30% of the people I wound.  If you have to have the glory of being the one to kill them with your bow, probably won't be the best way to go, but if you want to be a good support character while still being able to fully defend yourself when enemies inevitably get near you, then it works out quite well.  I have to say it is really nice to have a good melee weapon and rather than get in prolonged archer duels sometimes while your team is getting decimated elsewhere or an enemy hits you from the side or back, you can just duck and weave (most archers arrows are really easy toa void if you are aware of them targeting you adn there are not too many archers at once) and get up close and kill them in 1 slice maybe 2 at the most in their light armor.

Of course also with this build as a hybrid I put 124 wpf in 2h and wear 9.5 weight body armor, .5 weight gloves, .8 weight boots, and 1.5 weight helmet so most archers melee weapons dont do much damage at all (though my weight in gear makes my effective archery wpf 127).  I keep debating respeccing to a dedicated archer, but its really nice to just melee sometimes with decent stats.  I am starting to see more archers go this way instead of the opposite end of the spectrum, which is high athletics, pure archer who just runs away and shoots as someone gets close and repeats.  (The other day I saw an archer with a mallet, was fun to watch).

i am going a similiar build this gen. ( always had it on an alt. )  24/12( 2IF 8PS 4ATH 4RIDING 2HA 8PD 4WM ). All WPF in archery.  Gives me a little HA if i want it, but he's better on foot.  I like the same as Kesh, either a 2h of choice with 1 bag of arrows and strong bow, or 1slot 2hander like the messer, and 2 arrows.  Really, even 1 bag of bodkins if you wanted, is enough arrows with a good melee weapon.  I carry khergit. 

I also prefer being with the melee.  Its hard as you level, get stomped alot during the low ones.  But with level 30 with 8ps and a fast weapon, you can hold your own.

No matter your playstyle, if you try to be a good team player, most normal people are fine with whatever you play.

[Joseph]

Right, but if an archer who is avoiding melee who is not the last one remaining then it was considered delaying the game.

Gotcha.

Thank you for the Rules Clarification for those servers.

You'll get over it.

EDIT: getting bitched on is the fun part of being an archer.

[Tears of Destiny]

You'll get over it.

I did, though Polkafranzi apparently still disagrees. 

[Thtb]

I'm a 4 if cav, lightl armor (White tunic over mail, very cheap) and I took over 12 arrows in some rounds, mostly because riding away from archer + courser = might as well be rocks.

[Reinhardt]

Archers are a fundamental part of Mount&Blade that are absolutely necessary to counter-balance what could otherwise be ridiculously overpowered classes/builds.  I take a lot of flak for being an archer pretty much every single day since I started playing in April; I thought that if I treated people with some respect and got better playing my class that I would stop being bitched at day-in and day-out, but I have found that the exact opposite has happened.  It seems as if the only thing people hate more than the archer class itself is dying to an archer.

At some point in the recent past, a mental switch occurred that helped me deal with, if not benefit from the constant harassment about playing as an archer: I started to actually enjoy when I killed people and they got angry about it.  So the better I played, the more people bitched, and the more enjoyment I got out of the game.  I'm sure you've all been in a similar situation -- this is the internet after all.  The problem is, that isn't the type of player I want to be.  I didn't start playing Mount&Blade because I wanted to troll a bunch of people; I started playing this game because it seemed like a cool community built around a pretty sweet game, and I figured you all would be a pretty fun bunch to fight with some swords and arrows.  Despite there being a lot of truly shitty human beings that play this game, I still think my original assumptions about this community are not entirely unfounded.  Quite frankly, some of you guys rock, and it is hard to find that in gaming communities these days.

In my opinion, everyone that plays this game owes it to their teammates to attempt to contribute something meaningful, and that is the philosophy surrounding my play style (along with extremely healthy doses of liquid-encouragement): I hate not being up in the enemies' faces alongside my team.  I figure that just because I have a projectile doesn't mean that my job should be somehow easier or less dangerous than that of my teammates.  I also find that when you're shooting arrows at people's faces from 10 feet away, you tend to hit more of the enemies and less of your teammates, and that's a win-win for everyone (well, except for the enemies, but F' them).  I've seen time and time again a single well-placed arrow result in a solid victory for a melee teammate in battle, and I feel like that is probably the biggest contribution I can give to the team.  I can't do that reliably if I'm not half-way across the map.  Some people might, but I can't.

Plus, standing really far away from the battle is just so god damn boring

All of that said, I put it to you, my non-archer, bow-hating, level-headed fellow gamers: What do you want from the archers on your team?  What makes an archer valuable to you?  Would you prefer that archers keep their distance, raining in arrows from afar?  Would you prefer that archers are close enough to have your back in close combat?  What can I do, as an archer, to contribute more to our team?

Anytime I have an Acre longbowman (or any longbowman who knows how to shoot, such as yourself) I feel auto-safe. I try to protect that person and give them cover, because I KNOW in that round or another, my ass will be saved several times. Shoot into melee if you think you can take the shot, I don't care about getting kills because the TEAM gets the kill. If you can prevent an enemy flamberge from killing me, by all means headshot him from 50 yards.

Personally, the only bowmen I don't like are:
A) Horse a-.... Horse Arch-.. Horse Archers... >:C
B) Of course, those pricks who run around with the strong bow shooting accurately, hitting hard, shooting as though it was a machine gun, being able to carry a 2hander as well, and somehow have an insane amount of arrows. Also, when they bitch about enemy classes being OP.


Overall: I LOVE archers. They're a very valuable contribution to any team... if they know what they're doing. Archers can easily make or break a battle, and having a team with 5 shielders and 3 longbowmen, you can easily defeat most enemies if you play it right.

[Kaelaen]

When I'm on one of my melee builds, I simply pretend archers don't exist.  My sheer disbelief powers me through to get to locations unthinkable by people who are concerned with avoiding arrows, thus lending me easy kills to people who were expecting to have their backs covered by archers.  If I'm shot to death beforehand, I assume it was because of a natural disaster like one member of LLJK already mentioned in this thread.  Hell this one time I saw a group of 4 archers, but since I couldn't see how they could possibly have been any danger to me I simply approached them backwards.  That is, I turned around and S-keyed my way towards them.  I did not get shot at all until I turned around to kill two of them. 

(It's much the same way Cyranule doesn't believe lances on a horse exist - he still tries to do the turn around jump stab against them that was so effective when he was a two-hander with his tiny little espada and always gets couched for his troubles.  Often when this happens you can hear him complaining in vent how his character died of a heart attack mid-air for no reason.)

The thing is, bows are pathetic.  I started doing this with the standard 24/15 two-hander build (5 IF, 8 PS, 5 ath, 5 WM) but figured walking was boring as hell so I rerolled my skip to 30 Marie Anne to 21/15 ( 7 IF, 7 PS, 5 ath, 5 riding, 5 WM) and became even more resistant to arrows, in nothing but a cavalry robe.  That's super light armor, and it takes like a bajillion arrows to kill me.  Archers might as well become nonexistance if you wear any sort of armor whatsoever.  Oh friendly archer shot me in the back thus lending the bec de corbin user an opening to one-shot me?  Not the archer's fault, it was clearly polestun and polearms should be nerfed to hell, period.  Fucking pikes.

--

Oh wait there's more!  When I get really bored I sometimes drop this mindset and play an archer.  I don't play to be one of these other useless archers pointlessly shooting at targets they can't actually kill, I go purely for tin cans.  Longbow with 18/21 163 proficiency (6 PD 7 ath 7 WM 3 IF), I dropped Ryden once charging around on a horse in full plate in 3 shots with this.  Sure it doesn't have the most power, but with pierce damage you don't really need more powerdraw.  More WPF in my opinion is more important because I can shoot about as fast as a typical war bow user, and am even more accurate than the old standard 15/24 melee hybrid archer build with only 155 WPF in archery.  It's so accurate in fact I can comfortably go for headshots, rather than body shots.  Shoot for the rider, not the horse.  This has been the only archer build where I could comfortably maintain a positive KDR.

Sure I have absolutely nothing to help me survive in a melee (apart from like what 6 wpf in one-hander) but because everyone runs around with a bec de corbin these days I can simply run around with my 7 athletics to look for one and then murder people with it if they still feel like approaching.  (they always do >=D)

--

Long story short Gov, don't let people tell you what to do.  Fuck 'em all, just fire away.  If there's a 50/50 chance you have to hit the enemy as well as your ally, I say shoot.  If you kill the enemy, great!  If you get your ally killed, just think of yourself as incredibly amusing.  Whatever you do, don't stop to freaking apologize while theres a bloody wall of tin cans charging straight at you, kill them first!  Or run, but seriously it slightly annoys me when someone TKs me and then gets killed in the middle of apologizing for their actions.  Goddammit you could have avenged me!  Anyway I say shoot because I get TKed in melee far more than I get tked by friendly arrows, and that count includes getting my blocks interrupted. 

Anyway, unless your ally is a superhero and can't possibly lose the fight, you should in all honesty just go for the shot.  You're trying to hit the enemy, you are just plain going to succeed at hitting the enemy more times than you hitting your ally so it makes mathematical sense to just go for it.  Granted, it's all about the context of the thing but fuck people who complain about getting shot into melee.